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Vision

To help transition Japan to a peace promoting post-carbon country while enjoying every step of the process.僕のビジョンは、祖国日本で、平和文化を育みポストカーボン（Post-Carbon) 社会を促進してゆく事です。化石燃料や原子力に頼らず、他国の資源を取らない、自給自足な国へのトランジションを実現させてゆきたいです。

Just got this from the Worldwide Permaculture Network.
I don't know if Obama has ever heard permaculture,
but it looks like he is going to hear about it now.
...and I always love me some student activists educating
el presidente on how to live sustainably.
Permaculture on MTV means new challenges and opportunities.
Lets make sure permaculture doesn't turn into a Ché shirt.

Imagine the potential this has! This is by far the most important thing that I can be doing for the world right now — I truly feel that in my heart.

We have only 1 week to tally as many votes as we can – voting ends Saturday, March 3 at 11:59PM est (New York time!) Here’s a short description about the student group that I oversee, and how to vote:

UMass Amherst Permaculture is a student group that educates the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus and the local community about ecological permaculture solutions by demonstrating edible perennial landscapes that are highly productive, low maintenance, environmentally sustainable, and socially responsible!

As part of my work with Green Action (a Kyoto based anti-nuclear group) I help maintain a website called Fukushima Update. Its probably the best up-to-date source of news about the situation in Japan regarding the Fukushima disaster. It could be better...help and suggestions are welcome.http://fukushima.greenaction-japan.org/

The latest article I posted there seemed like a good one to share with you all.
Just like Wall Street and other toxic industries.

Japan Ignored Nuclear Risks, Official SaysNew York Times By HIROKO TABUCHIPublished: February 15, 2012

TOKYO — In surprisingly frank public testimony on Wednesday,Japan’s nuclear safety chief said the country’s regulations were fundamentally flawed and laid out a somber picture of a nuclear industry shaped by freewheeling power companies, toothless regulators and a government more interested in promoting nuclear energy than in safeguarding the health of its citizens.

The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, stricken by an earthquake and a tsunami last March, has led to widespread criticism of nuclear officials for their lax approach to safety, as well as for a bungled response that allowed meltdowns to occur at three of the plant’s six reactors.

The scale of the accident, which forced almost 100,000 people from their homes and contaminated a wide area of northeastern Japan, has put pressure on the government to explain why warnings about the plant’s safety went unheeded and global safety standards were ignored, even as officials promoted nuclear power as the country’s most reliable source of electricity.

Haruki Madarame, head of a panel of nuclear safety experts who provide technical advice to the government, told a Parliament-sponsored inquiry on Wednesday that Japanese officials had succumbed to a blind belief in the country’s technical prowess and failed to thoroughly assess the risks of building nuclear reactors in an earthquake-prone country.

For example, officials did not give serious consideration to what would happen if electric power were lost at a nuclear station, because they believed that Japan’s power grid was far more reliable than those in other countries, he said. The March earthquake and tsunami cut off the Fukushima plant from the grid, leaving operators unable to keep the reactor cores from overheating.

Officials also gave too little attention, he said, to new studies raising the possibility of large earthquakes off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture. Mr. Madarame said he was to blame for some of the lapses, but that the Nuclear Safety Commission had a culture of complacency long before he took over in mid-2010.

His candid testimony comes at a time when the government is pushing to restart reactors around the country that were shut down following the accident. Only 3 of Japan’s 54 reactors are operating; the rest have been kept idle by local governments worried about safety.

To quell opposition, the central government has ordered new “stress tests” to assess whether the plants can withstand a major natural disaster. But the investigative commission’s hearings could undermine efforts to restart more reactors.

Mr. Madarame said the government should go far beyond the lax safety checks that Japanese regulators performed for years, which he said were still being carried out in some cases using “technology three decades old.” He said that regulators had been too cozy with the industry. Mr. Madarame also criticized Tokyo Electric Power, the operator of the Fukushima plant, for saying that it could not possibly have prepared for a tsunami as strong as the one last March, which killed 20,000 people along Japan’s northeast coast.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

I miss living in nature.
This world (Tokyo life) feels so disconnected from life.
I miss clean air, scents of different plants, colors of nature,
birds singing, water flowing, no straight lines, life energy!
Sense of wonder and awe.
Below are pictures I saw on Takuya's (Japanese permy-friend) blog.
Brought me joy.
Nature is so awesome.
I live in insanity...but I am still alive.

My permaculture has gone offline. Lo siento. I've been focusing permaculture energy on workshops but I have a backlog of stuff, mainly pictures from Bullocks and City Repair, and some social permaculture ideas. I'll make sure to do it at some point.

In the mean time, lets take a break from nukes and explore my other fascination, the occupy movement. I mainly wanted to share a youtube and a poster that I enjoyed.

1. Occupy Wall Street Consensus video

I've been showing this at my urban permaculture weekend workshops. Maybe as subtle brainwashing: don't be so obedient and occupy something! The official reason I show the clip though, is because I believe the ability to effectively facilitate groups of people is essential to get things done well. Especially when we are talking about community.

In my experience, good facilitation produces amazing results. Poor facilitation produces immediate disasters or future time bombs. Most people and organisations I've engaged with do not seem to know the art of facilitation. Why would they? Authority figures making decisions is our dominant cultural paradigm. We are also used to two sided arguments, left/right, liberal/conservative, America/unAmerica, Demoblicans/Republicrats, good/bad etc. These two cultural practices help those in power keep their power, and make it difficult for communities to organise and become autonomous.

I could go on and on as facilitation has done wonders for me, but I'll just get to the video.
More on facilitation to come.
*the video is in English with Japanese subtitles.

Friday, February 3, 2012

We will examine best practices while identifying challenges/fears that participants are facing. Then we will apply permaculture design principles to the social landscape and find practical next steps people feel comfortable taking. We will also develop a plan for Tanuki Village (an apartment complex hosting this event) as an experimental site where we will apply these practices and share the results through the internet.

Welcome!

ようこそ！

You have arrived to a bilingual blog about sustainability, permaculture, and peace activism. Yeah! Please leave a comment if you feel inspired.Thanks for visiting and I hope you spread the seeds:) *the ratio of English to Japanese changes unexpectedly so if there is a lot of strange foreign characters, check out older articles might have the more familiar alphabet.

About Me

A "half", as they call us in Japan, who grew up in metropolis and rural Japan, Hawaii, Santa Cruz CA, Central America, and now Orcas Island WA. Taking a stroll through the path of permaculture, mindfulness, and love. Looking for more like-minded people in Japan or people interested in transforming Japan...
百姓／平和活動家／パーマカルチャー・デザイナーのヒヨコです。ブロックス・パーマカルチャー・ホームステッド（ワシントン州のオーカス島）で弟子入り生活をしていましたが、今は東京で平和と愛を育む活動をしています。先生、仲間、プロジェクト、土地を捜しています！